A conventional electronic attendance system requires a hardware device to store employees' credentials and to collect attendance records. The credentials can be employees' biometric information, cards/tag, or password. The drawback of having such hardware device is that it requires proper configuration and setup to work perfectly. The configuration and setup of the device can be very complicated most of the time and the administrator must receive appropriate training to setup the device. Also, the implementation fee to install the device and software is very expensive as the vendor may need to deploy professional technician to install and setup the device. Furthermore, the device also requires scheduled maintenance by the vendor to upkeep its performance. In the event of the hardware failure, this will cause inconvenience to the employees to report attendance and the employer to keep track of his employees' attendance. The freedom to switch to use any other brands of similar device is also limited so as to avoid incompatibilities issues of the legacy device. In addition to that, the device can only serve a single employee per time. During the peak period, this may cause employees to form a long queue at the device. If the device is a biometric device such as fingerprint device, hygienic issue will be another major concern to the employees.
U.S. Pat. No. 9,020,848 reveals a method for tracking time and location of an employee based on a predefined schedule. This method may uses time tracking software installed on a mobile device to detect the presence (or lack of presence) of an electronic signal emitted by a NFC (near field communication), BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy), or other wireless device. The detection may trigger the mobile application to communicate to a server to determine if the employee is scheduled to work at a work zone, which may result in the mobile application clocking in/out the employee. Also, geofencing may be used in combination with scheduling to clock in/out employees when entering a geofenced area determined by the employer. These location detection embodiments of the present invention may be used individually or in combination to improve location accuracy. A supervisor may also use this system to review the timesheets, make changes and integrate the data into a Payroll system.
US Patent Publication No. 20120223819 discloses a system for tracking an attendee at an event includes using NFC to track attendees' interaction with event stations at an event. Events are often crowded environments that can create interference issues for attendee tracking systems. The short range of NFC reduces interference issues and provides for a reliable standard for system to track attendees in crowded environments. Another technical advantage of an embodiment is that an attendee can choose which event stations the attendee wants to have read the NFC tag associated with the attendee. In this embodiment, an event sponsor can determine that an attendee has affirmatively expressed interest in the stations that read the NFC tag associated with the attendee. Yet another technical advantage of an embodiment includes providing an efficient, low impact and simple method for event sponsors to track attendees, and attendees to interact with event stations. NFC tags are lightweight, affixable to articles that an attendee can carry or wear, and simple for an attendee to operate with little instruction.